


Rest and Rehabilitation

by PBJellie



Category: South Park
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Addiction, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Rehabilitation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 03:38:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14824553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PBJellie/pseuds/PBJellie
Summary: Kyle has always been one to hold a grudge.





	Rest and Rehabilitation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Blame Canada (OneHitWondersAnonymous)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneHitWondersAnonymous/gifts).



> Written as a birthday gift for Blame Canada. Enjoy and happy birthday.

“Birthday sleepovers are the best,” Stan said through a mouthful of chips.

“Yeah, dude,” Kyle replied, his feet hanging off of the armrest. He curled his toes as he took a sharp turn in his new racing game. It was a gift, from Stan. He looked down at the ground, to see Stan leafing through the manual, pausing at glossy images of exotic raceways. He smiled.

So far, eleven was a pretty sick birthday. Sick as in cool, not as in actual sick, as was his eighth.

It’d be even better when his folks came back with pizza. They'd gone so far as to take Ike, so he wasn't running around at their feet, clamouring for a turn. It wasn't his birthday, and it wasn't his sleepover.

When the heard a knock on the door, they ignored it. Kyle's mom had left strict instructions to not open the door for strangers, or anyone, while they were away. They'd be back in a while, they said.

Kyle was on his tenth race. He was about to win the Grand Prix, shiny digital trophy and all. As he rounded the final turn, in second place he might add, the knocking continued. He could hear a muffled voice over the peppy electronic soundtrack and Stan’s snacking. As he finished, in third, he paused the game, and listened.

“Police, open up,” the voice called. It was a man, with a deep voice that carried throughout the home. “Police.”

Kyle looked at Stan, eyes wide. We're they going to jail? Stan shrugged, looking back at the pictures, tracing the lines of a track with his index finger. Kyle closed his eyes, sucking in a breath through his mouth. He tried to remember the last time he did something illegal.

Were they here about the war? Surely not. They'd have followed up on that a lot sooner if they cared. Maybe they wanted to ask about the escape of President Trump. He groaned, pulling on the side of his hat. Hopefully, it wasn't any government agency coming to take his GameSphere away. That had happen one time too many.

“Police,” the man said, growing louder. “I’m going to break in the door.” It sounded like a warning. Kyle's hands grew cold. Maybe it was someone pretending to be a cop. Tweek had told them about how his dad had prepared him, saying never to open the door for anyone. Not even the police, because they might not even be the police, man. They might just be your dad with a gun.

Kyle didn't want to get shot by his dad. He didn't want Stan shot either.

With a crash, the door fell to the floor. Kyle looked from the couch to see two officers, dressed in real uniforms, or at least convincing fakes. Anyways, they were inside now. No one was being shot, either.

“I didn't mean to do it, officer,” the words fell from Kyle's mouth before they had even breached the living room threshold.

“Yeah, what he said,” Stan mumbled, not looking up from the booklet.

“Boys, no one's done anything illegal here,” a familiar voice called from outside of their vision. The two cops were stoney faced and silent. “We're not US Olympic Gymnastics. I kid, I kid. We have fun here. We like to have fun.”

Kyle and Stan groaned, looking back at the TV as Kyle selected his next race.

“I'm afraid there's been an accident,” the social worker, with his scruffy beard, said. “Like hiring Larry Nassar. Did I give you boys a copy of my head shot?”

“Like nine times, dude,” Stan said, not looking away from the screen.

“You're gonna have to come with us, both of you.” 

  
  
  


* * *

 

  
  


“I'm not an addict,” Kyle clenched his teeth. They ground together as his aunt, the one who raised him from age eleven to age eighteen looked down her glasses at him. “What, don't look at me like that. It's called neurohacking, and everyone is doing it.”

“The news reports called it Speed,” she clucked her tongue, shaking the plastic baggie of pills in her hand.

He had gotten lazy with hiding it. He'd come home from his junior year at Denver, with a internship, and so much work to do. He just needed a little extra energy.

And it just so happened that he knew where to buy it. It wasn't cheating. It wasn't. It just made him his best self. Wouldn't you want to be the best version of yourself?

His bitch aunt didn't. He didn't want to settle for the same level of mediocrity. He wanted better than to be married to a carpet salesman while she collected checks for keeping him as a charge. Sure, he was Kyle One now, but at what cost?

“I'm just worried about you, bubbeh.”

“Don't call me that,” it came out before she could finished the word. It wasn't her word to use. She knew that. He'd said it a thousand times.

“Oh, honey bunch,” he didn't protest, “what would your mother think?”

How the fuck should he know? She was dead.

  
  
  


* * *

 

  
  


He'd only agreed to the halfway house so he could stay in school. The dean made no qualms about expelling him, waxing on about having a code of ethics and something about entering manhood. He just nodded, calculating how far behind on graduating and GRE prep he'd get if he had to take time off.

It was the second half of junior years, and Moses knew he didn't want to wait another year for his senior classes. No, he nodded when the Dean said rehabilitation, something about addiction, even though he wasn't addicted. He didn't need the pills to function, just to do all the work his teachers assigned, so much fucking work.

He'd taken Hebrew as an elective. Hebrew, for fucks sake. He just had a full plate, that's why he did what he did. There was no addiction, just a beneficial relationship.

He didn't need the drugs.

He wasn't like the other seven men, he hoped all men, he wasn't prepared for a coed space, behind the door. His head ached as he turned the knob. He could hear a steady pounding of blood in his ears, a whooshing sound.

He took a breath, he wasn't about to pass out on the steps of a halfway house. What would the neighbors think? They already think he's an addict, even though he's not; it'd be awful for them to think he's fallen off of the metaphorical wagon. He opened the door, pushing it open with his toe of his sneaker, like it was a piece of trash.

Inside was bright, like they'd opened all the blinds and turned on all the lights. Which was strange, seeing as there was a very prominent layer of dust on the baseboards. It didn't seem like a place you should look too hard.

Three men sat on a couch, solemnly watching a TV that Kyle couldn't hear above the blood in his ears. He looked at the men, eyes focusing on one with jet black hair, obviously dyed, and promptly fell to the floor, bags clattering at his feet.

In front of him, watching TV as if it were a normal Thursday afternoon, was Stan Marsh.

  
  
  
  


* * *

 

  
  
  


“It’s good to, uh” Stan was in front of him, the light making a halo around his face, “it's good to see you again, Kyle.”

Kyle cursed under his breath, remember that he fainted in the entryway of a halfway house, sober living as it was sold to him. He tried to stand up, to brush the dust from the floor off of his jeans and walk right back out the door, but a hand stopped him.

“Stay down, dude,” it was Stan again, smiling like they hadn't been apart for ten years. “Your blood sugar okay?”

“Don’t,” Kyle hissed, taking the hand off of his shoulder. “You don't get to do that.”

“Fine, whatever,” Stan huffed, walking slowly back to the couch. “You're my roommate though, so you'll have to get the fuck over it eventually.”

Kyle could hear someone, another man, chastising Stan for his word choice. The same man came along and helped Kyle up, grabbing his bags from underneath him. He chatted in pleasantries, talking about the weather and something about comradery. Kyle nodded occasionally, eyes never leaving his bags, which the stranger was carrying.

One for school, his books and his laptop, and another for clothing. He figured he'd be back in his dorm before he knew it, a month, max. They'd realize he wasn't one of them, and send him home.

He stood in the doorway, as instructed, as the man searched his bags. Like he'd be done enough to bring drugs to a halfway house. Another tick in the not an addict box. He smoothed his hair, then toyed with the buttons on his shirt as the man unscrewed the tops of his toiletries, verifying that it was indeed shampoo in his shampoo bottle.

Of course it was, he wasn't an idiot.

His eyes scanned the room. Two twin beds, one with the sheets crumpled at the foot, the other militantly folded. His must be the bed that was made.

There was a cork board on the far side of the roomz between the beds. He looked at the pictures pinned up as the man turned his socks inside out. All pictures of Stan.

Stan and his mother, presumably him going to college, if he even went. Crows feet sprang from her eyes. She didn't age well, at least Kyle didn't think so.

Next was a picture with Randy, orange jumpsuit and all. He looked yellow, like his whole body was the wrong color. Maybe it was a cheap camera, he didn't know what kind of cameras they let in jail, nor did he care too.

There was one familiar picture, the two on them, on his eleventh birthday party, throwing peace signs, eyes squeezed shut as they laughed for a selfie. Their heads touched, both with messy hair and Terrance and Phillip pajamas. It was right after his parents left for the night.

That was the last picture that existed of Kyle, from when he was normal. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

 

 

“You're just not gonna talk to me?” Stan asked as Kyle poured of his Calculus 3 homework. He'd been here three days. Three days of that question.

He didn't justify him with a response. He never did.

“Christ, a primadonna still,” Kyle looked up to see Stan's face wrinkled, like Kyle was disgusting. He'd learned in the mandatory group meetings that Stan had a drinking problem. Kyle had fought back a crude laugh, burying it in his belly. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Stan was the disgusting one.

He bet Stan got pulled over for driving drunk, just like his father. Maybe he even slaughtered a family coming back from Pizza Hut.

He'd have to speak to him to ask. 

  
  


* * *

 

  
  
  


“I forgive you,” Stan sneaked up him while he was doing school work. “For not talking to me for ten years,” he continued. “I forgive you.” 

Kyle wanted to look up from his English book and give him the finger, damn him to a hell he didn't believe in, but he didn't. He thumbed his way through instructions of how to write a good persuasive essay, mentally taking notes as he went. He did not say anything to Stan. 

  
  
  


* * *

 

 

“I don't talk during meetings because I'm not a drug addict,” he said in a harsh whisper. The man across from him fretted, typing away at a computer. “You've tested me three time, I'm not on drugs.”

“You were taking Speed, regularly, according to your aunt.”

“She’s just bitter that her kid is an absolute idiot. He couldn't even get into the University of Denver. It’s not like it's hard to get in. There's nothing prestigious about it,” Kyle curled his lip, thinking of his rejection from Stanford. Maybe if he worked harder in high school. He was fourth in his class, and maybe if he'd had help back then, he'd have been first.

“Just try to opened up more, okay?”

He didn't. He kept the same icy face for all of the mandatory meetings. He didn't say anything about how the other residents were too lazy to switch out toilet paper rolls. He didn't complain about how someone had left the refrigerator cracked and all of the food could have spoiled.

He didn't say anything. He let everyone pass a stupid talking stick around the circle, and when it was his turn he just passed it along with a shrug.

It had been two weeks. He wasn't talking to any of them.

He wasn't one of them. Why should he? 

  
  
  


* * *

 

  
  


“You know, I'm doing my steps,” Stan said one evening as they laid silently in their own beds, “and I'm sorry I drank, way back then. I put you in a hard spot.”

Kyle didn't know why he was talking to him. They weren't talking. Kyle didn't talk to anyone here. The house manager, sure, because he had to, but no one else. It had been two months, and he went to school and came back, that's it. Every spare second was used to catch up with his studies, to make up for the study aid he'd been forced to quit.

He'd seen then passing the pills around on campus. He'd even bought a few, for emergencies. Like you've got a science paper, an at home math test, and an English report all due in two days kind of emergency.

“Glad to know you forgive me, asswipe,” Stan sneered, turning the light on in their shared room. “Look at me!”

Kyle kept looking at the ceiling, blinking back the light. He didn't respond. Stan sat on the bed, his bed, right over his knees, and stared at him.

“Say something, Kyle! I didn't fucking kill them!”

And Kyle did say something.

“You didn't not.” 

  
  
  


* * *

 

 

“Pass the butter, Kyle,” Stan said at breakfast the next morning. As if Kyle would break. He just nodded curtly, sliding the ceramic butter dish towards Stan, whose toast was already buttered. He'd started with the butter dish this morning.

“Thank you,” Stan looked at him, eyes wide, hoping for a response.

Kyle shrugged, shoulders moving a fraction of an inch. Stan smiled all the same. 

  
  
  


* * *

 

 

“You can't really think I killed them,” Stan said at 1:33 the next morning. “Like maybe eleven year old Kyle thought that, but you're grown. You can't hold a ten year old accountable for his father's actions.”

Kyle let his tongue click, like he was about to say something. Unleash a torrent of why Stan was wrong and Kyle was right, like always. Instead he let his mouth close, teeth clattering together in the process. He instead hummed something in agreement.

“See,” Stan rushed out of bed, jumping onto Kyle's, “I knew you'd come to your senses. Kyle I missed you so much. So much, you can't even imagine.”

“His picture is on the wall,” he murmured as Stan threw his arms around his shoulders, face nuzzling into his chest.

“Well, shit, dude,” Stan half sobbed, “I can take it down. You're up there too. We used to get into so much shit together. God, wasn't it the best?”

Kyle nodded in the darkness. He'd remembered them as good times, but his memory coloured it as because he has parents, because he had Ike. But his parents weren’t the only things he had lost in the crash.

He'd lost the whole fucked up town of South Park. He'd lost being a big fish in a little pond. And he'd lost his friends, namely his super best friend, Stan.

“Yeah, dude,” Kyle smiled, “it was.”

  
  
  
  



End file.
